


Darling

by socool



Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Kang Younghyun is the typical bad boy character, Kim Wonpil is just the softest best friend that everybody needs in their life, Romance, Slow Burn, nothing new there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-11-12 16:56:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18014750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/socool/pseuds/socool
Summary: In which Kang Younghyun turns Choi Eunbi's university life on its head when the two are partnered up for their assignment. And Eunbi wants nothing more than to smack him across the face with her music binder.





	1. Chapter 1

“Alright class, settle down. I have the list of partners for this semesters writing and composition assignment.”

University. The final step in my life before I could flourish on my own. I’m a fine art’s major at univeristy, but I chose to minor in song writing. Well, I didn’t really choose it, more so I was forced to by my best friend, Kim Wonpil. He’s a music performance major himself. 

“Hey, do you think we’ll be partner’s again this semester?” Wonpil, who was sat besides me excitedly pinched my waist. 

His passion was music. Even when we had no projects to complete, he could always be found in the music classes, or his own little home studio writing and composing beautiful pieces, his honey-like voice accompanying the notes that he played.

For me, art had been my calling from as young as I could remember. The was that the paints would mix and flow across the canvas to create intricate abstract works. That’s where I felt content within myself. I hoped that one day, my works would be shown in galleries all around the world, and I could inspire people to have the same dreams as me.

Wonpil and I had been inseparable since we we’re toddlers. We met at a piano club, me being a complete beginner to the instrument, and Wonpil being quite intermediate. My mother had wanted me to try a hobby more ‘practically skilful’ in her own words, rather than me dribbling on countless pieces of paper with rainbow crayons. Wonpil had saw me struggling to string together the basic chords so that the flowed nicely, and decided to sit by my piano still until I had almost perfected it. And that was the beginning of it all. I don’t know what it was in particular, but something between us just clicked and I haven’t looked back since. He’s my best friend; a literal ray of sunshine, a happy virus, a bundle of joy. He’s just Kim Wonpil.

“So, do you? Do you think we will? Huh, do you?”

But he’s also a pain in the ass.

Professor Seo in front of us was listing off the names of the paired students, so I turned to Wonpil and hushed him.

“I don’t know Wonpil. I think the past two semesters have just been pure luck. I don’t think we’ll get a third strike of luck this time around.” But I secretly kept my fingers crossed. When Wonpil and I worked together, we always scored some of the top grades in the class. The two of us played piano, so it was easy for us to create ballads together, along with Wonpil’s touching lyrics. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but we we’re quite the dream team when it came to this class.

“Kim Wonpil and…” 

“Please say Choi Eunbi. Please say Choi Eunbi. Please say Choi Eunbi.” Wonpil was chanting over and over again next to me. I couldn’t help but chuckle at his childlike behaviour and poke his shoulder. “Please say Cho-“

“…Lee Suhyun.” Instantly, I saw Wonpil slouch downwards in his chair and exasperatingly clutch his chest as if his heart had just broken into a million little pieces. I rolled my eyes as him, but secretly, I was just as deflated. I wasn’t all that close to anybody else in this class, so not being paired with Wonpil was already nerve-racking enough.

Professor Seo continued to read down the students that were left on the list, and one by one, the names that I was slightly familiar with were becoming paired up with other students. There couldn’t have been that many students left to pair up, my name must be coming up soon.

“Choi Eunbi and…” 

Lo and behold. 

I held my breath as my professor read across the list. I shut my eye’s tightly and hoped that my partner would not be a complete let down for the semester. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t necessarily _hate_ any body, it’s just if I wasn’t paired with Wonpil, I prefer to work by myself, or at least with someone who is just as equally as quiet as me so that talking could be kept to an optimal minimum. 

“…Kang Younghyun.”

Okay, maybe there is just _one_ person that I hate.

Kang Younghyun - or Young K as he’s known around the school as. He was you’re typical cliche bad-boy-but-ace-student character right out of a story book. He was the type of guy that had girls flourishing after him left, right and centre. He was the type of guy that all the professors couldn’t help but sing praises about. He was the type of guy that rode the waves of daily gossip about him. He was that type of guy that thought every so highly of himself, and himself alone. 

And he was the type of guy that I definitely did not want as my partner for this project.

If it weren’t for me being seated at the front of this class, I would be tugging at my hair and repeatedly hitting myself with my binder. But I didn’t. I tried to contain it all inside.

That was until all of the students around me began to shuffle around the class room and find their designated partner. “Well, I guess this is so long, Eunbi. It was nice knowing you, but I’m afraid I must now depart. Goodbye.” With a wipe of a fake tear, Wonpil rose from his seat next to me and scanned the classroom for Suhyun. “Oh shut up Wonpil.” I feigned annoyance and shoved him away, tempted to grab his sweater and pull him back to shield myself from Younghyun. I stayed put, hoping that if I didn’t move, Younghyun wouldn’t notice me, and would instead find someone else to partner up with, or work by himself. But that was all wishing thinking as I saw the chair besides me become occupied by the devil himself.

My hands really were almost to the point of reaching for my binder and knocking myself out cold. Almost. It was a tempting thought.

“Well, well, well Eunbi, looks like the two of us are stuck together for the semester. Parnter” 

“Don’t call me that.” My gaze didn’t look away from the projected slideshow in front of me. 

“Now come on _partner_ , don’t be so cold. We’re designated _partner’s_ for the semester, let’s not make this torturous, _partner_.” I didn’t even have to look at him to know that there was an amused smirk plastered across his face. I could just hear it in his voice. With a blatant roll of my eyes, I turned by body towards his lounging figure.

“You really are a piece of work, Younghyun.” I sighed deeply.

“Please, just call me Young K.” As if. That was his infamous nickname that was the hot topic of everybody’s lips on campus. The nickname that makes girls want to be with him, and makes guys want to be him. And I did not want our project to even become associated with that.

“I think Younghyun is just fine.” I huffed. And he just clicked his tongue in response to me. “Let’s just get this assignment over and done with. The quicker the better.”

“I don’t know about that. These type of things need work.” He casually placed his arm over the back of my chair and scooted it closer towards his own. He brought his face closer to mine and caught my gaze with his dark, feline-like eyes. “I like to take my time darling.” He finished off with a wink. 

My body was stunned momentarily before I groaned and shoved him away from me, packing all of my books away in my backpack. We hadn’t even began to get a start on our project and he had found a way already to start grinding my gears. Those types of tricks didn’t work on me, and they never will do. I didn’t look up once from my things as Younghyun stood up and pushed his chair under the desk.

“See you in class on Monday. Partner.” And with that, he effortlessly slung his backpack over his shoulder and sauntered out of the classroom. A gaggle of giggling girls already hot on his heels.

“Screw you Younghyun!” I yelled, a little louder than I had intended. All he did was throw a peace sign our his shoulder and exit the building, but I could have sworn I heard his mocking laugh ring out as he left.

With a bitter taste in my mouth, I heaved my bag over my shoulder and trudged to the door where Wonpil was waiting for me. I didn’t even have to say a word for him to know that I was undeniably not anticipating the project work. The pout on my face said it all as I just woefully started up at him. He slung his arm over my shoulder and pulled me into an awkward side hug. 

“Good luck Eunbi.”

Oh Wonpil, it’s going to take a lot more than luck for me to make it through the semester without hitting Kang Younghyun across the face with my music binder.


	2. Chapter 2

“Stupid Kang Younghyun, out of all the people in the class, why did Professor Seo have to pair us together? I should just drop out of the class. I can’t do this. I can’t cope with it. I’d rather just fail.” The atmosphere in my little apartment bedroom was cold as I aggressively mixed my mediums together on my palette. “Stupid, annoying, stuck-up, irritating Kang Younghyun.”

“Woah, chill out Eunbi. What did that paint ever do to you?” Wonpil was sat on my bed, scrolling through his phone and occasionally looking up to see how my painting was getting along. Bless his soul, I could tell that he was trying to lighten to mood of my current situation, but right now, the annoyance was still raw, and not even Wonpil could make me feel better. From the corner of my eye, I shot him a glare, and his mouth snapped shut. 

Since the class on Friday, all I had done was complain about being paired with Younghyun. It was all I spoke to my roommate, Park Jimin, about on Friday night, and Saturday morning until she had had enough of me and got up to get away from my excessive moaning. I’m surprised she hadn’t thrown me out of the tenth storey window of our dorm complex. I know I would have.

Just the thought of having to spend time with him, and just him, outside of class time is what was aggravating the most. On a normal day, I could easily just avoid him by not even have to cross paths, but having to sit side by side, and work, and communicate? I wasn’t feeling all too thrilled about that.

A heavy sigh left my lips as I stopped mixing my paints and pulled my paintbrush up to observe the now frayed and messy bristles of it. What was I letting Younghyun do to me? 

“Eunbi, you just have to go through with it. You haven’t even properly met Young K yet, why don’t you just give him a chance?” Wonpil huffed and set his phone down. “I know you can’t even fathom the thought of tolerating him, but you’re partners together right now and there’s no way to avoid it. You can do this, just… just imagine you hitting him with your folder every time he starts to annoy you. That should help.” And I couldn’t help but laugh. Wonpil was really trying to make me feel better about my situation. 

“Shut up Wonpil, why do you always have to be the voice of reason for everything?” I tried to stay mad but I just couldn’t help it.

“Because I’m always right.” He exclaimed as he got up to flick through my collection of dvd’s. “Now come on you big overly exaggerating, overly dramatic, overly sensitive idiot. Let’s make some hot cocoa and watch a movie.”

 

***

I aimlessly walked around the university campus alone, killing time before I’d have to face my first day of working with Younghyun on our assignment together.

The clouds have created a blanket over the Seoul sky and only put a damper on my mood even more. Talk about pathetic fallacy. 

It was the autumn semester; and the winter flowers in the university garden were beginning to bloom. I often found myself wandering the greenhouses and the botanical gardens of the campus; barely anybody else came here apart from the horticulture students, so it was a nice little getaway. It became my little go-to place when I was feeling stressed about deadlines or assignments, or just about anything really. Sometimes I would bring Wonpil along with me to just sit and admire the beauty of the nature. 

I found myself just sat there in silence for a while, mulling over what Wonpil had said to me yesterday.

_“Eunbi, you just have to go through with it. You haven’t even properly met Young K yet, why don’t you just give him a chance?”_

And as much as I didn’t want to do so, Wonpil did have a point. Younghyun had never done anything specifically to me, it was just the way that he carried himself that irked me. Him and I had never actually had a proper conversation between us before. Perhaps I was judging him to early. 

I looked at the time on my watch and saw I had ten minutes to get myself to my songwriting class. It only takes five minutes to get myself there, so I could take a leisurely stroll and savour the little time that I had left to myself for now.  
Every pace I took was slow, prolonging the time that I had to myself before I stood outside of the class door. Without thinking too much into it I pushed the door open and scanned the desks before me. Wonpil was already sat at his desk with Suhyun, and when he spotted me, gave me a cheesy smile and a big wave before sending me two thumbs up. I gave him a little wave in return.

My eyes danced across the classroom until I saw Younghyun situated at the very back of the class. He was leant back lazily on his chair, his foot propped up on his knee and his arm slung over the back of the chair next to him. His suave aura radiated off of him even from all the way back there. A small group of girls already had their gazes fixated on him and were murmuring things about him when he would glance over at them and smile just to humour them. 

His dark, feline-like eyes found mine still at the threshold of the class, and his lips curled up into a smirk. Younghyun’s head tilted to the side as he raised an eyebrow at me.

Oh gosh, I was staring at him. Why was I staring at him? Why am I still staring?

I bit my tongue and rolled my eyes and I made my way to where he was, and sat myself down at his desk, leaving one chair in-between us.

“Good afternoon Eunbi, and how are you this afternoon?” His voice just oozed irritating vibes.

“Afternoon Younghyun.” I said plainly and set my things out on the desk in front of me. I looked over and saw that Younghyun hadn’t had a single thing prepared before him. “Aren’t you going to take notes as we discuss things?” 

“Oh naïve Eunbi. You really think I plan for us to start our project today? You and I are partners and this is the first time that we’ve conversed. How about we get to know each other first?” That taunting smirk never left his face; in fact it even grew with every word that he said.

“I signed up for songwriting, not mingling, Younghyun. Can we please just actually do some work?” I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair. I hadn’t even been sat with Younghyun for five minutes and he was already exhausting me. 

“Now how are we supposed to work in harmony if we don’t know anything bout each other? All the best collaborations happen between artists with the best relationships. What do you say, darling? You don’t want to make a shitty song, do you?” By now Younghyun has moved to the empty seat that was once in-between us, and was leaning dangerously close to my personal bubble. My fingers gripped the edges of my seat I shut my eyes in frustration.

“Fine, I’ll bite. You get to ask me three questions, and I’ll do the same for you. Then can we please just start this project?” As much as Younghyun irritated me, I suppose that we would get nowhere if I continued argue against him.

“Of course.” His glee was evident in his voice; he knew that he already had an upper hand in regards to control between us. “Now, I’ll go first… What’s the dirtiest thing you’ve done?”

What!?

I stared at Younghyun in complete shock at his question. I thought he wanted us to get to know each other better, not be a complete pervert. I continued to stare at him wide eyed while we waited for an answer from me. I pulled myself together and thought of how to answer.

Did I want to answer his stupid question? No.

But did I want to give him the satisfaction of knowing how uncomfortable he was making me? Absolutely not.

“I made mud pies when I was in elementary school.” I mean, I did answer his question. And the falter in his smirk was all worth my while. “What’s your favourite hobby?”

As quickly as his smirk faded, it was back again as he opened his mouth to answer me. “High intensity, physical activity.” He ended with a wink. He was trying to one-up me and play me at my own game. And hell was I going to let him win. “Why the piano?”

“I like how it sounds. It’s both a simple and complex instrument. It’s the most beautiful of them all.” I answered him, relieved about his question this time. “Why the bass?”

“Well, these fingers need to do something else to keep them busy when they’re not occupied with other things.”

“Do you always have to be so vulgar?”

“Yes. Do you always have to be so frigid?” 

“Yes.” I threw my composition book open on the table in front of me and began to write the date. “Your three questions are up. Let’s get on with working.”

And surprisingly, Younghyun obliged. Although it was mostly me talking and coming up with a concept for your composition — Younghyun was lounged backwards in his chair throwing in his two cents of input every now and again. So far, it was mostly my project right now. 

“So we’ll create a slow, ballad type of song? I think that the piano, along with bass and guitar would sound good together with that type of concept.” I didn’t look up from the page as I continued to scribble down basic notes.

“Ballad? What type of person do you take for, Eunbi? We’re doing something more upbeat. Something fast paced, something…” Younghyun got up from his reclined position and put his elbows on his knees, bringing his body closer to mine. A lot closer. “…sensual. No and’s, if’s, or but’s. I know what I’m doing when it comes to this type of stuff.” 

And I just sat there. Again. Stunned before I rolled my eyes and groaned, twisting my body away from him and shrinking in on myself. I wanted so badly to argue against him. I had always been so good at sticking up for myself, but, why not now? It felt like some weird sense had washed overly and I couldn’t argue against Younghyun.

“Fine. We’ll do that instead then.” my voice was quiet this time as I crossed out everything I had previously written in my notebook. 

The weirdest sense of déjà vu washed over me and I just sat there again. Feeling one up’d by Younghyun just like I had the first time I had met him. It was like he had some sort of unspoken power over me; perhaps not like how he wanted, not like how he could pull the strings of any girl on campus like a puppet and they’d completely be at his mercy, no, it was just some odd force that radiated from him that wouldn’t let my being argue back to him, no matter how much I wanted to.

At this very moment, I just wanted nothing more than to have Wonpil comfort me in front of a mug of steaming tea and let me rant about how much I just despised Younghyun and everything about him. Like how I do almost everyday.

And my prayers were answered when Professor Seo dismissed our class for the day. I didn’t say a word as I packed everything away.  
“Oh, and by the way, I've booked us out a one of the private studios for the semester. We can start to properly compose tomorrow.” This was the most professional I had heard Younghyun talk since the beginning of the project. Even so, I didn’t say anything back to him, only wordlessly nodded my head and I left the room and to the fresh outdoors, not sparing him a second glance. 

Oh this really was going to be a long semester.


End file.
